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Video diaries or documentaries put the camera into the hands of students
so that they can tell their own stories about a particular topic or
create a programme about a particular issue or concept.
Childers (1997) describes how video documentaries were used in a national
project (USA) focussing on college students and diversity. The goals
for the project included:
- addressing diversity issues in new ways using the video documentary
process as an educational tool;
- helping students become more reflective about their attitudes
toward diversity and how it fits into their self-interest;
- creating constructive public dialogue on diversity issues and
building better student relations in this time of heightened tension
on college campuses; and
- strengthening teaching related to diversity.
Student outcomes included the opportunity to
explain something about themselves to
other students by creating and sharing personal video diaries, and
they got to work intensively with other students on a final group
video project. (p. 33) ...The video diaries became tools
not only for self-expression but also for community-building. It
turns out that the initial empathy one student experiences while
watching another's video diary can inspire interest in other cultures
that some students might not experience as readily in another way.
Individual stories told with particularity can transcend ideological
disagreement. These personal video diaries, which communicated both
the joys and the disenfranchisement of minority life in the United
States, encourage awareness rather than premature political judgement.
(p.34)
Childers, M. (1997) -ISM (N.)Lessons Learned
from the National Video Diversity Project, Change, The Magazine
of Higher Learning, March-April, 1997.
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